Christmas Special! (by G and Biggs)

G came back from Mexico in a pretty relaxed mood and decided we were going to have a simple approach to Christmas Day and just do up some lovely platters. I agreed to do a breakfast platter and he was going to look after the luncheon platter.

Then his brain took over and it couldn't help itself but invent the unheard of, Internet black hole, totally fictional DUMPEMBOUCHE! Christmas. Was. On!

Biggs: I started the day off right with some bacon and eggs, jazzing it up a bit by baking the eggs in a basket of bacon and serving them with a side of halloumi and asparagus with a touch of Christmas ham on top.

A Bloody Mary on the side ensured a crackin' start to the day. Speaking of crackin' there was quite a mis-step when I managed to shatter an entire egg, shell and all, into one of the bacon lined muffin trays - no matter, I just gave myself that one so as not to ruin G's Christmas. After all, he was about to embark on ruining his Christmas Day all by himself!

G: Biggs and I were watching some baking show the other day and the TV person made a croquembouche. I don't have a sweet tooth at all so I pondered out loud, "Why doesn't anyone ever make a savoury croquembouche, with dumplings or something, a dumpembouche". Biggs picked up on that and ran with it and insisted on a dumpembouche for Christmas instead of my original, simple, plan of just doing platters. As to the final resulting dumpembouch... I don't want to talk about it. It was a failure, dumpembouch is not a thing and I don't want to talk about it. That's not to say that I won't, one day, a long time in the future, forget the searing pain of failure that this dumpembouche brought me and try again...

Biggs: I for some reason offered to make dessert which wasn't a great idea since I've never made dessert before, barely eat dessert and really don't care about such things. I tried to care, I really did. I loved our Grandma's flummery when I was little so thought I would recreate that. I assumed it was a jelly made on cream but the Internet seemed to think it was just a jelly wizzed up to make it fluffy. So, gelatine, water and sugar were mixed up and heated with orange and lemon juice. Then, once set in the fridge slightly, passionfruit was added and wizzed up for a long, long time. I made a giant error of using a hand blender with blades instead of beaters so in seconds the passionfruit seeds had broken up and turned the whole thing into a grainy, grey mess. I served it with cream and strawberries and everyone was VERY polite.

 

Biggs: G doesn't eat dessert so I served him up a cheese platter of which I didn't take a photo - you'll just have to use your imagination.....imagine the best cheese platter ever....it was something like that. I did however take a photo of the fruit platter Fi and Dan brought along. I don't know where they get their fruit from but it sure was fresh and delicious, super ripe and flavourful. They also brought along some crackers, hommus and a heap of different home brews that were very welcome!